Last week I described a shocking scene that took place on my cousin’s street after a truck drove into her living room and then attempted to drive off. Things ended with one man hospitalized and another in jail, and as I write this column the man is still in custody on charges of criminal mischief, deadly conduct and assault with bodily injury.
For part two of this story I think I’m going to talk about how quickly rumors are spread on the street after an event like this, which in turn will show how hard reporters and news anchors work to separate fact from exaggerated street talk.
When I arrived nearly every neighbor and many passersby were standing around asking one another what was going on.
We’ve all been a part of that group. Down the street we see fire engines and police cars and start trying to gather all the information we can from the most irrelevant people that know as little as we do. Whatever inconsequential piece of trivia we happen to get from one person is linked with another portion of the story – whether it’s true or not – we heard from some other random guy we’ve never met until that moment in time, until finally we have an incoherent story that makes about as much sense as an Ed Wood film. Somehow what really turns out to be a smoke scare from a grease fire morphs into a story involving a bomb placed in the home because the housewife is really a drug dealer who is giving the local Chinese mafia too much competition in this Dallas suburban neighborhood.
Okay, maybe that story was a little too half-baked to be spread around the neighborhood while smoke is barreling out of the house and firefighters are dousing the home with water, but you can certainly understand the sort of embellishment that I am talking about.
So you can see why it would be problematic for a reporter to speak with a witness about what they know, because honestly they probably know more fiction than they do fact.
Obviously the reporter is going to speak with the fire chief or police officer at the scene, but for some reason we think some commentary from an unknown face in the crowd regarding what they think is happening will confirm any lingering questions the television audience or readership might have.
With my cousin’s particular situation, what really was a fight over a girl inside a truck between the driver of the vehicle and a man hanging from the side of the truck was told among the neighbors as both men inside the vehicle fighting with the girl between them and one of the men fled the scene, jumped over some fences and police were still looking for him.
Clearly the truth didn’t turn into something involving turf wars between the Jets and the Sharks, but it was exaggerated somewhat by the ill informed spectators.
Because of where I work I like to make sure the public is aware of the truth and that is why I volunteered myself to speak with a news anchor on the scene. I will go into more detail about my experience in front of the camera for my three-second sound byte in next week’s column, but I can say I avoided spreading any false information by simply telling the reporter that our family wasn’t sure of what had happened prior to the truck being inside my cousin’s living room and I couldn’t give any possible details regarding that part of the incident.
Next time you are standing outside a house on fire or watching an arrest take place in front of some restaurant, you might want to wait until that night to watch the news or read your local newspaper and get the facts before calling the people in your five and blabbing some falsified story that turns out to be anything but true.
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